Tuesday, 21 October 2008

Home is Where the Yarn Is

Back home!

Yes - the week in the château was fantastic and I met lots of nice people. Everyone seemed to have fantastic skills and design ideas, so I was a little daunted, but I learned a lot and I'll be using some of those techniques. Watch out for new stuff in these posts.

Learning to DesignI've always just sat down and made stuff, usually without any planning - generally driven by my latest yarn find. One of the things I learnt on this course was that I can use what's around me to help me plan, give me the colours in a project, or give me ideas for the techniques to use.

I made a bag (no surprise there) but instead of just starting, I based the colours and design on this picture:

I used some greens, pinks and earthy colours for the bag, and embroidered pink french knots near the base, inspired by the little cyclamen. It turned out rather well and I'm pleased with it. I decided to make it on 4 needles to avoid seams, and this was very difficult for me, as I've never made anything (apart from a tiny hat for an Innocent bottle) on 4 needles before. I found it made a line up the fabric where each needle finished, but I later found I could just move over one stitch every round and avoid this.

Anyway, this is the bag before the embroidery...

...and this close-up shows the french knots (longish because I can't do neat little round ones on knitting).Then I discovered Jane's Curly Scarf pattern and made that on Monday afternoon! I just finished in time for the 'Show and Tell'!